At Harvard, Facts Are for Losers

Writer and historian Dara Horn, a Harvard graduate, recently reflected on the decision by the school's newspaper to align with the antisemitic BDS movement.

In her day, Horn writes, pro-Palestinian students presented facts in their argument against Israel (even if they were tendentious facts). But today, facts are no longer important. The pro-Palestinian mural that apparently moved the Harvard Crimson's editors to endorse BDS was propaganda of the Hamas or ISIS variety. That is, students no longer bother making a political argument, but attach themselves instead to an ideology that seeks the destruction of the Jewish people.

After reading the Crimson editorial’s rave review of the newest mural, I decided to take a look at the online photos of this art display. I naively expected those old-school panels of facts and figures, interspersed, as per usual, with paintings of doves. But that loserly premise of persuading people with facts turned out to be long gone, along with the doves. Instead, I saw a propaganda mural that would have been at home in any Middle Eastern authoritarian state, where it would have been painted by government lackeys to illustrate classic regime talking points that openly genocidal groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors in Iran have been pushing to local and Western audiences for years. 

To read the full essay, click here.

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